


boats in a safe harbour sway gently

by dosvedanya_bitches



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Missing Scene, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Red Room (Marvel), allusions to mysterious Soviet pasts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 00:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10605462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dosvedanya_bitches/pseuds/dosvedanya_bitches
Summary: Pre-Civil War.Bucky and Natasha share a conversation, leading to an offer of a safe-house in Bucharest.





	

**BUCHAREST, ROMANIA. JEWISH NEIGHBOURHOOD.**

* * *

 

Her tea is completely finished by the time he works up enough nerve to enter the café, shuffling past the other tables with his shoulders hunched over, making his way to her table in the very back corner. He’s glad she picked this one – it’s got a good, clear view of the exits and the windows, and probably even the rooftops opposite the café. It lets him breathe a little easier; she probably knew that when she picked the table, knew that if she wanted any chance to talk to him, she had to take the edge off his paranoia. Clever girl.

He slips into the seat opposite her, the wooden legs creaking a little under his uneven weight. He ducks his head, slipping his cap off and flicking at his hair to make it sit right, to sit the way he’s found he likes it. She watches him fuss without comment, and he can feel her gaze on him as he flicks his eyes over the other patrons of the café, evaluating, as he narrows them at the two armed policemen waiting for their takeaway coffees, moving on after he deems them non-threatening.

He looks her over next, purposefully eyeing her jacket. His eyes follow her hands as she undoes the buttons and pulls the jacket open, showing him the modified Sig Sauer at her waist, the outline of the knife strapped down her ribs, two taps on her left thigh and one on her right to let him know the knives she’s carrying on her legs as well, and once he’s satisfied that they are all the weapons that she has on her, he drags his eyes up to meet hers.

“Natalia,” he says, voice gruff, using that name because that is who she is to him. He doesn’t give a fuck about who she is to other people. That was the point of it all, wasn’t it – that she is anything and everything to anyone and everyone, and _Natalia_ is who she is to him.

Her face doesn’t _change_ , exactly, because she’s far too good for that, but he can sense that she’s slightly unsettled. It unsettles _him_ , her being off-kilter, because he’d been banking on her coming here to get what she wanted from him, certain and sure as anything. But if she fractures, who the fuck knows what _he’s_ going to do. Certainly not him. He shifts a bit more towards the door, just in case he needs to get out quickly.

“I wasn’t sure you remembered,” she says neutrally, and… _Fuck_ –

“I…” he starts, and then trails off. What was he going to say to her, anyway? He hasn’t got anything to give her, can’t give her anything like what they used to have, mostly because he’s not a fucking person like that anymore. He grimaces, and offers, “Sort of. A bit. Mostly – you know – shit that fucks with me enough to get in the way of other shit, until I’m sifting through a mountain of shit that’s smeared over the good stuff, enough that I can barely see it.” It’s not much, and he knows it doesn’t really make much sense, but he thinks that she gets it. She’s smart.

She nods once. “I thought so. Just the bad things, then?”

And this is where it gets complicated. Because it’s not just the bad things that he remembers about her. It’s good things too, little flashes of it, but the bad things are just so overwhelming that they taint the good things, twisting them into something gnarled and sick and suddenly not-so-good anymore. Things like little girls, young and perfect and ruthless, and his hands wrapped around their necks and ankles and wrists, _snap-snap-snap_ , and they smile at him after, all bruised and broken and loving. _Comrade_ , they call him. _Brother_. _Lover_. It makes him sick.

With Natalia – and she used to be his, he remembers that much, even though it’s tainted with the taste of rubber in his mouth and sparks behind his eyes, like every fucking other good thing that ever happened to him – it’s worse. Because he knows what they did, knows what they made her do to him, and he hates her for it just as much as he loves her. Loved her. He doesn’t fucking know how he feels. But she was warmth, and that stands out to him in the fucked-up mess of his memory because everything else was _cold-cold-cold_ , and he clings to that enough that it makes him confused about her. He doesn’t know what to say, how to feel, how to act around her.

“Mostly,” he says, licking his lips, “Mostly the bad. But some good, too. You…” And here he trails off, grimacing apologetically. He slowly reaches his flesh hand towards her so she knows what he’s doing, and she lets him brush his fingertips over the soft skin behind her ear. He sucks in a breath, stops breathing as the impressions flood him, because he’s touched that place so many times before and _how could he forget?_ He exhales shakily, slowly drawing his hand back and putting it into the pocket of his hoodie. He clenches it into a fist, fingers tingling with _soft_ and _warm_ and _Natalia_.

She hasn’t moved a muscle since he first leant forward to touch her, but now the corner of her mouth quivers. It’s tiny, but it’s definitely there, and the fact that he can make her lose her composure like this sets off the crawling beneath his skin. He pushes it down, because _not fucking now_ , and pulls his flesh hand out of the hoodie pocket again. He places it very carefully on the table, palm-up: an offering.

She fixes him with her eyes, shining more than they had been when he’d sat down, and he has to look away and run his metal hand through his hair, grimacing, because it’s so obvious that she’s so fucking strong even though this must be hard for her, and it makes him feel more pathetic than he usually feels. It’s her eyes – they’re big and green and not-familiar-not-unfamiliar and they see so much, show so much when she wants them to, and right now she’s looking at him like she hates him but can’t stop herself from loving him. He, well… He supposes he feels like that, too, as much as he can.

So it’s not surprising that she slides her hand into his, her palm just as rough and calloused as his own, and lets him curl his fingers around, tight and secure. It takes a few seconds, but he can actually feel his heartbeat slowing down, can actually feel the crawling under his skin recede, can actually feel the warmth building in his chest. Oh, god – he’d forgotten what this feels like. It hurts, almost, but in a good way, so he keeps holding her hand.

She gives the tiniest of squeezes back to him, and it’s enough to let him know that she appreciates his offering. That she appreciates him being here, even though he can still see her eyes shining. She’s not going to cry, he knows that, because she’s not going to let him see her that vulnerable, but he almost feels like _he_ might. It’s the burning sensation in his nose, the prickling at the corners of his eyes, that tell him that he’s probably going to cry. He cries so goddamned easily these days. He’s done enough fucking crying in the past few years to desiccate at least fifteen times over. Fuck.

He clears his throat, and she lets him slide his hand out of hers, pulling it back to the safety of his hoodie pocket. The change is instant – the moment his skin leaves hers, he feels a lot colder, a lot less raw and exposed. That’s enough skin contact for now, he decides, because he’s fucking sick of crying and really doesn’t want to do it right now. But he feels empty, as well, because it had been really nice, _really_ nice, having her hold his hand like that. Fuck. It’s been so long since anyone’s touched him like that, since he’s touched anyone like that.

(Steve doesn’t count.)

He clears his throat again, and it hurts in a vague suggestion of how it feels when he’s been screaming himself hoarse – and he knows too well how that feels, doesn’t he? But he’s present enough in this moment that it doesn’t overwhelm him, the memories don’t pull him under. She hasn’t moved her hand off the table, and it looks so small sitting between them. Small and fragile, and he knows well how easily her bones break under his metal hand, _crack-crack-crack_ like little bird-bones, just as well as he knows how strong they are, wrapped around his throat or gripping his jaw or digging into his back, urging him _harder_ –

He swallows with some difficulty. “You… You broke me.” His tone isn’t accusing. He doesn’t blame her. After all, he broke her first, didn’t he? He broke all of them, innocent little girls looking up to him for guidance, like he’d _protect_ them… He clenches his fists, carefully looking at Natalia without _looking_ at her.

She tilts her head to the side, and coolly returns, “You let me.”

He looks down at her hand, watches her draw it back to disappear into her lap. He half-remembers that. He remembers giving in, letting her drop him, hard, and strap him against the table. But then it gets fuzzy, everything tinged with the scorching agony of electricity, bright and sharp – he remembers panicking, remembers struggling against the straps, and why would he do that if he was letting her hurt him? Then screams, his screams, her screams, but that can’t be right…?

He shudders, head pounding with the remembered screams, the echoes of straps on his chest and ankles and wrists. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know what happened. Maybe he let her. Maybe he didn’t. But he remembers being punished after that, remembers the cold and the panic and the pain and the humiliation and the terrifying confusion that came after a bad wipe, a strong wipe, when he didn’t know fucking up from down. She did that. It was her.

God, he fucking hates her for it. He doesn’t blame her, because he knows how fucked up that place was, but he hates her for it. But there’s love there too, under everything, and that just fucks with his head even worse.

“If you say so,” and he tries not to sound petulant but it’s really fucking hard when he has nothing to go off but some hazy memories that make no fucking sense…and her word. But he’s willing to take it, to take what she tells him as truth, because of guilt and that goddamned fucking _affection_ he inexplicably has for her. It’s not going away anytime soon, no matter how much he hates her. So he’s going to believe her, because what the fuck else has he got to go off?

She gives him nothing. Her face is back to that calm, neutral expression, the one he can’t get a read off. He’s never been able to hide his emotions like that – he’s always felt everything so strongly, too strongly, and he could never completely hide it. But Natalia, well, she was always the best, wasn’t she? Little Natalia, dancing en pointe even through the pain after the other jealous little girls put glass in her shoes. Natalia, older now but still little, her strong thighs forcing him into a lock, the second time she’s taken him down on the training mat. Natalia, older still, skilfully taking him apart until he’s gasping brokenly into her neck –

He shakes his head from side to side, squeezing his eyes shut to force out the barrage of memories. He takes his hands out of his hoodie pocket and squeezes the edge of the café seat he’s sitting on, trying to focus on the feel of the wood under his fingers, trying to make sure he doesn’t freak out and stays in the present. It takes a few moments, enough that he can only let go of the table when it’s already splintering under his metal hand. _Crick-crick-crick-crick_. The sound grounds him more than the feeling, and he exhales heavily. Fuck, he’s so sick of this.

When he opens his eyes again, she’s staring at him still. It’s sort of uncomfortable, but it’s a whole lot less uncomfortable than having anyone else stare at him, which he’s goddamn thankful for. He shuffles in his seat, shifting the plates on his left arm with little _click-click-clicks_. He doesn’t know how to act with her, and it’s putting him more and more on edge the longer he sits here. He wants her to – to just _do something_ , to yell at him or take him in to the authorities, to cry or to just fucking kiss him, because this…this _nothing_ , it’s killing him, winding him up. He can feel the crawling under his skin creep back in from where he’d pushed it down, and nervously crosses and uncrosses his ankles.

“Um,” he says, and _fuck_ he sounds stupid, “What – what’re you…” He cuts off, frustrated, and licks his dry lips, and who knew words could be this fucking hard to get out, “Why did you want to talk…to, um, to me?” Fuck. He can’t even fucking speak. He should really get out more.

She moves, now, finally. He can literally see the tension draining from her muscles, can see her relax in front of him, and it _makes no fucking sense_ because of all the people in the world, she’s the one who knows what he’s capable of, who knows how unstable he has to be, and yet here she is, relaxing in front of him. She threads her fingers through her hair, sunset-red and curly to her shoulders, shucking it back from where it’s fallen into her eyes. God, she’s beautiful. He’d forgotten how beautiful she is.

“I wanted to see how you’re doing,” she says. From anyone else, it might just sound like she’s concerned about his wellbeing, a casual question from an acquaintance or an old friend. But from Natalia, he knows that she wants to evaluate him, to get a read on his mental state – which is fucked, by the way – or to see how much of a threat he poses. Well, she’s probably got a pretty good impression by now. He can’t fucking hide anything anyhow, not feeling so raw like this, sitting hunched in his seat in front of her.

“Gonna bring me in?” he asks, mouth pulling up into the empty echo of a cocky smirk, something he remembers how to do but not how to feel. He knows she’s not going to bring him in; she would have taken him down from a distance and they’d never have gotten the chance to talk like this.

“No,” she replies, “Not to the authorities, anyway. I was thinking a shower, maybe some decent food. You’re too skinny, and your clothes are looking a bit thin for this weather.”

He tenses up, immediately suspicious, because why is she offering him food and clothes? What’s in it for her? What does she want from him? Fuck. Maybe she wants to use him herself. Natalia is probably the one person who knows how to use him properly, outside of HYDRA, the one person who knows how he works, what his programming is, how to get him to do what he’s best at, what she wants him to do. Hell, she might even know his trigger words. The Widows were always good at gathering information like that, and Natalia was always the best.

The crawling feeling under his skin spikes suddenly, sending him to his feet, breathing hard with the effort of keeping his muscles tense, of stopping himself from wrapping his hand around her throat. He doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t. He wants to fucking – _leave_ , to run, to hide, because he doesn’t want to go back to that. He doesn’t want to go back to the missions and the wipes and the pain and the cold, doesn’t want to go back to the killing and the blood and the dark satisfaction of a mission well carried out –

“James,” she says quietly.

He flinches, the memories of all of the times she’s said his name like that overlapping to echo through his brain. He doesn’t quite feel like _James_ , not how he’d been _James_ to her just as she’d been _Natalia_ to him, but he feels the echoes just the same. The servos in his arm whir loudly, and he forces himself to straighten his hand out from the tight fist he’d been squeezing it into. God, she’s not going to fucking _do_ this to him. Not her. He won’t fucking let her do this to him.

He swallows, looks around the café furtively to make sure no one is listening too closely, and grinds out, “I’m not lookin’ for a handler. You don’t have to – to, fuckin’ _offer_ me shit, I ain’t gonna…I don’t do that anymore. I’m done. I’m…done.” He takes in a deep breath, then exhales slowly, a controlled stream of air. He’s told her. And she’d better fucking take him at his word, because if she tries to take him down, to force him to submit, she’s going to have a hell of a fucking time of it.

He flinches when she laughs, a surprisingly rich and satisfied sound. “Oh, I’m not after your…services,” she says, and is he imagining the innuendo there? Surely not. Does she think this is fucking funny? “I’m offering, well, a safe-house. Somewhere you can get warm, get fed, get showered. Some clean clothes. More supplies, ammunition, whatever you need.”

He just blinks at her for a few incredulous seconds, his mind stuttering over her words. He doesn’t – what? He runs them over in his head, looking for the catch, looking for any sign that she’s lying to him, but there doesn’t seem to be any. He can’t find one. Natalia – she wants to _help_ him? Fuck. _Fuck._ He’s too tense now, so he forces himself to relax a few of the muscles in his shoulders. It helps him to process what she’s offering him, to run the words over and have them come back to him with, well, _help_ attached instead of _manipulate_. He wants to believe her, he really does. The crawling under his skin recedes, to be replaced by a blooming feeling of _hope_.

“Really?” he can’t stop himself from asking, trying not to let too much confusion colour his voice. He’s not that out of control of himself yet. “You don’t – you don’t want, because…” He tries to impress the rest of what he wants to ask her with his eyes, because his speech sure as hell isn’t cooperating. He licks his lips, his tongue catching on the chapped skin that has come from being outside in the cold too long.

She shakes her head, her eyes gentle. _Fuck._ It cuts at him, an ache in his chest. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime, I think.”

He looks at her with wide eyes, encroaching panic fading into confusion fading into wonder. This – this can’t be real. She wants to help him, to actually _help_ him, and doesn’t want him to kill for her? Well, he supposes that she could probably do it herself, and maybe she just wants to keep him around as a goddamn trophy, but as he turns the idea over in his mind, trying to wrap his head around it, he finds that he wouldn’t mind all that much if that is the case. As long as she’s not making him kill anyone, he’s not going to reject her offer of an assist. Natalia. Strong, perfect, cruel Natalia, offering him compassion and kindness.

And yet: “Why?” he asks warily, and he tries not to be suspicious but he fucking is, he can’t get away from that, can’t get away from the fucking paranoia that constantly buzzes at the back of his mind, “Why are you helping me?”

She takes a few seconds to answer, like she’s running the words over in her head before saying them out loud, but when she does, she says, “You may have let me, but I did break you. It saved me, in the end. I owe you a debt.” And that look she gives him now, that’s all Natalia, that same determination she’s had since she was a little girl. It makes him painfully proud, painfully sad, to see that it’s still a part of her now. She raises one eyebrow at him, daring him to say something, but he’s not going to. He won’t. He can’t.

He runs a shaking hand through his hair again instead. He feels strangely light, in a way that he hasn’t felt in – a long time, anyway. There’s a large part of him that wants to say no, that wants to give in to the anger he has for her, simmering under the affection and hope that are trying to push him into saying yes. There’s a large part of him that wants to get up and leave and hide again, because how the fuck does he know what might happen if he goes with her? He doesn’t; he has no idea what might happen. And that’s enough – that _should fuckin’ be enough_ – for him to accept her offer of a safe house.

He nods to himself a few times, runs his hand through his hair again, psyching himself up, because it shouldn’t be this fucking hard to accept an assist, and exhales shakily, saying, “Alright. I’ll come with you.” There. He’s decided. And no one’s yelling at him, hitting him for accepting help, for showing weakness and letting it influence his decisions. No one’s done that for over two years now. It’s incredibly freeing, he finds, even with the little thrill of echoing rebelliousness sending his heart racing with adrenaline. That’s the light feeling, probably.

Natalia leans back, a pleased smile tugging at her lips.

“So I have this safe house…”

**Author's Note:**

> And that is how Bucky found his safe house in Bucharest.


End file.
